Stories told in light and silence
Poetry will make me violent
Violets outside our yard…
Why does the world have to be so hard?
Encompassing the hidden truths
Of things unseen in what we view.
- LMH
Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.
Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”
Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.
Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.
Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.
Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.
Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.
Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”
In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.
Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.
Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.
Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.